I Ain’t Gonna Manage No More

By Anthony J. Lockwood

While doing day-o for “duh man” in my youth, I built elaborate fantasies about the revolution I’d bring to the American workplace once I was the Tally Mon. Then I became boss and had to manage, um, people,many of whom have potential forever fallow beneath their character flaws. Worse, however, is how I managed them. I am simply too romantic for it. Many mentors learned me the right way to earn my daily bread.As kind of karmic payback, I’ve tried to pass it on, but I’m no good at it.

Now, I have to say, I’ve been lucky that most of my managees did not require managing once they understood the job’s parameters. Which is good not only for what they bring to the organization, but it is good for me. I actually can get the best out of people who need to do the best in order to live with themselves. You then manage the work, not the workers.

Still, romanticism is my downfall. I believe those old bits of rubbish like, “be a good role model and ‘they’ will follow your lead” or “treat them with respect and they’ll respond to you.” Like a nut job, l expect a different outcome every time.

   

Lockwood

< < Still, romanticism is my downfall. Like a nut job, I expect different outcomes every time.

Compare: On my way to work years ago, I was captured by some Visigoths and forced to pillage a village. I was good at it, but 15 minutes late for my day job. So, for the next six months I purged this spot on my record by working an extra hour each day wearing burlap undies. Contrast: One employee I managed fell abed with a cold for a week. They barely crawled back to their desk afterward; however, as part of their near-death experience, they got a tan and dyed their hair purple. They also needed to schedule their next vacation.

Another, after volunteering to do extra work, reverted to grunting after not getting additional pay. One, born with a silver spoon in the mouth, thought my eyes were too old to see the Amazon Shopping Cart tab on the web browser.

And then, my own Bartleby the Scribner. Melville’s Bartleby drove his boss nuts saying he’d rather not do something; mine cheerily agreed to do it, then blew it off.

With each of these people, I went into mentor mode. I calmly explained that they were kidding no one, living in a fog, ripping off their co-workers, jeopardizing a steady income, and flirted with a warning, blah, blah. I was heavy on the logic. I explained how what I asked for was all part of a wonderful and holy plan to advance our cause. I reminded them that the world does not operate for them alone.

Nothing. Zippo. Secret Shopper and the grunter were the only ones I exploded at. Shopping on the company’s time is stupid; grunting annoying. I railed. They quit.

But my bigger failing as a manager with each of these people was that I could not just boot them out. They were humans, and I’m a sucker for the species. I had this unflagging faith that I would utter the magic words and suddenly all that rich potential within would gush out of them like Jed Clampett’s bubbling crude. And then I’d bottle my wondrous ways and revolutionize the cold, cold heart of corporate America. Then again, I thought that by this stage in life I’d be a combo of Mickey Mantle and Bill Shakespeare. I couldn’t manage to make that happen either.

Thanks, Pal.—Lockwood

Lockwood is Anthony J. Lockwood, the erstwhile Editorial Director of DE, this website, and, obviously, a poorly managed life. Send comments, kudos, or flames to this guy by clicking here.